Jazz historian Gary Carner has been going out of his way in recent years to make people aware of the perhaps neglected legacy of jazz baritone saxophonist and composer Pepper Adams.

Now the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Stage Band will get to share the joy and excitement of performing the world premiere of a new arrangement with lyrics of Adams’ “In Love with Night” during a concert at Alden Memorial hall at WPI beginning at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. “We’re very excited about it,” said Rich Falco, director of jazz studies at WPI.

“He was one of the great stylists in jazz history,” Carner said of Adams (1930-1986). Adams has been said to have transformed the baritone saxophone with “blisteringly” fast speeds. Carner has described the Adams style as “very long, tumbling, double-time melodic lines. And that raw, piercing, bark-like timbre … He was a very intense player. By far the greatest on his instrument in history. No one comes close, ever.” So if Adams has been in danger of being forgotten, Carner is trying to right the wrong. Carner’s book “Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography” was published earlier this year, along with the release of a digital box set of recordings that Carner produced called “Joy Road: The Complete Works of Pepper Adams.” The piece “Joy Road” was one of Adams’ 40-plus compositions. Carner has also commissioned lyrics and new arrangements for some of Adams’ works.

Sunday’s performance of “In Love with Night” will be part of an all-Pepper Adams concert by the WPI Stage Band of 22 musicians and the WPI Jazz Ensemble (12 musicians). The concert is free and open to the public. Carner will give a pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m. and also a longer lecture earlier at Alden Memorial at 3 p.m.

The new version of “In Love with Night” was commissioned by Carner with arrangement by acclaimed saxophonist Osian Roberts and lyrics by New York poet Barry Wallenstein. Jazz soprano and WPI faculty member Monica Hatch will sing the lyrics on Sunday.

“This will be a high point for all of us,” Falco said. “And since it’s not been heard I’m really excited to share it with an audience.”

Falco and Carner have known each other since the days in the late 1980s/early 1990s when Carner taught at Quinsigamond Community College and Assumption College and was also the historian of the Worcester Jazz Society. Originally from New York City, Carner now lives in Atlanta.

Falco said when he heard that Carner’s book on Adams was being published he contacted Carner and invited him to WPI. “It was originally for a talk,” Falco said. But as the two talked, the pending visit took on some jazz inspired variations with Carner offering WPI students the opportunity to play “In Love with Night.”

“It’s nice of Gary to give this to us,” Falco said. He described the new arrangement as having an “absolutely beautiful and haunting melody.” The lyrics are the stuff of poetry (“ … A lingering touch in the dark now, is twice held/ is thrice held …”), which Falco said Hatch delivers perfectly. “Monica’s spot on.”

In his day, Adams was known on the jazz beat as “a musician’s musician,” Carner said. In the 1975 Playboy magazine annual music poll he was named an “All Star’s All Star.” Down Beat magazine named him baritone soloist of the year for 1980.

And yet, “I think he’s completely gone into obscurity,” Carner acknowledged. “People’s knowledge of him as a composer is zilch.”

That said, things are changing. Carner’s book and CD collection have been written about and reviewed nationally (including in The Wall Street Journal) and internationally this year. “I think it’s a question of time. It took time to catch up,” Carner said.

Adams came into Carner’s life first when he was a master’s student pondering what saxophonist to write his thesis about. He had five living saxophonists in mind. Adams was the only one who replied to his letters. Later, Carner got to know Adams and worked on biographical material with him during the last two years of his life. Adams was a heavy smoker and drinker, and died of lung cancer at the age of 55.

“He was a gifted writer, a gifted person,” said Carner. Since Adams’ death, Carner has continued to draw on and expand his research and appreciation for Adams’ work.

Falco’s WPI students have been seeing the way a great musician and composer can still be shared with people as they get ready for Sunday’s world premiere concert.

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